Mini Notebook market set to get blown wide open
According to a report recently published by AU Optronics, the mini-notebook market is about to hit the fan. Sales of the tiny computers numbered in the “several hundred thousand” for the entirety of 2007, but if AU is to be believed, we could see exponential growth this year. The report predicts somewhere in the range of 8-10 million mini notebook sales for 2008. Whoa! Normally we’d pass this off as baseless speculation, but AU is one of the biggest suppliers of LCDs for mini notebooks, so we’re inclined to trust them a bit more than the average Joe. See a mini notebook in your future, BGR faithful?
i can see getting one. I like the size of the Dell that Michael Dell was showing off. I’m curious to see who gets into the mini-pc market this summer (Apple) and see how it compares to some of the existing ones i like. I miss my 12″ powerbook, would love something in the 9″-12″ range.
i had that eee laptop for a couple of days and sold it. it’s too small, and the 800×480 resolution is horrible.
if it runs Iphone OS or OSX, then yes. if not, its just some pretty hardware with an OS im sick of. oh, id consider a nice distro of linux too.
I’d love to get a mini pc, but they’ve gotta start boosting up the hard drive space to the double digits man. At least 80GB. The new dell looks like a winner
call me weird… but one laptop and one smartphone are enough for me.
Would love one – maybe in January after bonus time…
I have four freakin’ computers in my house and the macbook is the only one I use. A mini pc? no thanks.
the macbook is all I need for computing, and my dash works perfectly for mobility. I gots all I need. I think we’ve reached the point where smaller doesn’t = better.
I hope to get one over the summer – either the MSI Wind or the Dell.
Yupp im gettign one..Either a wind or a mini note..
Already got an EEE PC 700, but I am strongly looking at a HP Mini-Note or the new EEE
I will get one eventually, probably when I move to my own place and don’t use my brothers laptop.. The dell will be interesting, as well Acer’s new one.
I tried out the EEE 7″, but it was not really usable. Screen too small, too little res.
I think the mininum useful laptop size is 11-12″, with at least 1024×768 res.
Any smaller than that, and you might as well get a handheld like an ipaq or an N810/800 or HTC Advantage (depending on priorities and OS preferences)
I’ll keep with teh 12″ lappy and teh iPhone2
Hp mini!
Yea I’d go with an HP mini-note or a new Dell mini Inspiron. That’d be kinda cool. Hopefully you’ve all read my comment on the Dell mini Inspiron headline…Tilt to the rescue!!!
I don’t really see why I’d need to get a mininotebook. While they might be nice to carry around, they’re mostly underpowered and under-featured, with tiny screens. I need an optical drive. I need a couple of USB ports, a firewire one, audio imput, and some sort of DVI connection.
My MacBook does everything I need it to do, in a compact enough package to carry around, even with a power supply. And it has a 13″ screen. I suppose a Lenovo X3000 might work, but if it isn’t full featured, I can’t be bothered with having it. Sorry mininotebooks. Syncing between 2 computers? Why bother when I can just keep one…
make me a 10″ widescreen laptop with a decent keyboard, and all the features of a MacBook, and I might consider switching it up.
Would be nice to know how many of what size screens that AU Optronics is expecting to ship. I’d agree 7″ is too small to be really helpful, but the 9″ ish size with an appropriately tiny machine like the eee 900 seems pretty workable.
I just ordered the HP 2133 Mini, 1.6 Ghz processor , 1280 X800 res, 2Gb RAM, 120Gb HD, 92% Size Keyboard…
Still wont see it for another week to 10 days though!?!?!
I’ll post More after I receive it…
KP
Possibly by the end of the summer. I don’t need anything special, I have my home P.C. for my needs, I’d only get one of these as an extention of my home P.C., not a replacement.
Just as something to hold a bit of my music and let me surf the full web while I’m on the go…my Blackberry 8110 can only do so much
>_>
Hi BGR,
Do you have any hands-on product reviews and more photos on Asus’ latest mini? Much appreciated!
Ugh. Mac fanboys. You goobers with your ‘my mac does it all, I don’t need a mini notebook because my mac does it all’. So what?
The reason you purchase a mini notebook is for portability reasons at a abnormal cheap rate. Your mac may be portable, there are other manufacturers with just as portable 13″ laptops, but at a base cost of mid to high thou, puhlease.